Rosebush (27 page)

Now as he pushed my wheelchair down the hospital corridors at an impressive speed, Pete said to me, “Are all your friends preparing to have their own reality shows? Because they certainly go in for drama.”

“And yours don’t?”

He swerved around a slow-moving gurney, eliciting a shout from the nurse. “Sorry,” he said, waving over his shoulder. “Problem patient.” Then to me, “My friends? They’re not so much into the yelling at each other in lobbies and making out in stairwells, no.”

I would have turned around at that news, but I was too busy gripping the armrests. “Who was making out in a stairwell?”

“Some of the people who were here yesterday.”

“Some of the people?”

“Some girl and some guy. I just assumed they were friends of yours.”

“What did they look like?”

“Hang on, I’ll show you. I filmed it.”

“You did?”

“No, doofus, that’s the point.” We were back on my floor. “When people are making out, you turn quietly and walk away. You don’t note their distinguishing characteristics so you can relate them to the hot patient in room 403.”

My pulse started to race at his words. “Is that me?”

Or maybe it was the fact that as he said it, we rounded a corner on two wheels, nearly knocked down orderly, and narrowly missed taking out a garbage can.

We zoomed past the sitting area outside my room. I caught a glimpse of the girl with the coloring book, but the dark-haired husky-looking man had been replaced with a bald husky-looking man reading the
Daily News
and drinking Tab.

“Yes, roughage. And speaking of room 403, here we are. Three fifteen p.m. and all is well. We beat that slowpoke boyfriend of yours by a mile.” He pushed me through the door. “Would you like to be reinstalled in your bed or would you prefer the comforts of this delightful throne?”

“Bed, please,” I said.

Pete wrapped me in his arms and picked me up. I nestled my nose into his neck. He smelled like blueberry pancakes.

“Do you really think I’m hot?”

“Right now,” he grunted, “I just think you’re heavy.” He heaved me to the bed.

“Coward.” Blueberry pancakes and smoky bacon and long breakfasts with lots of crumbs and sticky fingers that had to be—

“I never said I was brave,” he told me, breaking into my day-dream.

For a moment I was totally flustered—what was I doing, thinking about other guys when my boyfriend, my
awesome
boyfriend, was just about to show up—but then I remembered the drugs I was on. Probably this, like the hallucinations, was another side effect. Pete didn’t mean anything to me.

“Do you have a girlfriend?” I asked.

“Yes.”

And I didn’t mean anything to him.

“Is she hot?”

“What”—grunt—“do you think?”

Pete was leaning over me to tuck me in when David got there.

“Uh, am I interrupting something?” he said, sounding tense.

“Just getting it on with your girlfriend,” Pete told him. His face was a mask of innocence, but his eyes were very blue and very mischievous. “No, I’m joking, man. I’m the orderly here. Tucking her in. But she’s quite a girl.” He high-fived David. “See you later.”

I watched him go. I did not, I told myself, feel a twinge of disappointment that he had a girlfriend. I looked at David. “How are you?”

“How are you?” he said. “You look even better than yesterday.”

“I can move my arms.”

“Nice.” He nodded to himself, looking around. Today he was wearing his Snoopy 4 Pres T-shirt and dark-brown suede Vans. His pants were slung low on his hips and although I couldn’t see them, I would have bet he was wearing his Captain America boxers. He liked to wear them with the Snoopy shirt, both of them being so patriotic, he’d explained. That was love, I reminded myself. Knowing what underwear someone is wearing without having to see it.

Knowing their every mood. Which was why I could tell there was something on David’s mind.

“You seem distracted,” I said.

“Me? No. Well—” He pulled up the chair and spun it around, then sat on it backward next to the bed. “I didn’t get to say this the other day, lady-girl, but I’m truly sorry you didn’t die.”

Chapter 23

I stared at him,
not sure that I’d heard him correctly.

“I mean, if that’s what you wanted.”

More staring.

“Langley told me—” he started to say, then stopped. His left leg bounced up and down. “You know, you’re right about her. She’s really great.”

“I know. What did Langley say?”

“She told me how upset you were that night. About me and Sloan.”

“Sloan?”

I leave David’s lap and head for the stairs. I turn and see Elsa talking to him. I turn back and walk into
—

David said, “She told me how you were running around talking about how you wanted to end it all. She thought, you know, you meant break up with me. But I—well, I hear it different.” His fingers started tapping on his thigh.

“What do you mean with Sloan?”

David took my hand from the hospital bed and started stroking it. “Look, babe, we can get through this. For your sake, you’ve just got to breathe it out. All the pain. The anger. You need to choose what to stress about and what to chill about, right? Like sure, I was with Sloan at the party, but that was only because I was mad at you because of what Elsa said. I thought you were going behind my back, so I went behind yours.”

In my head I heard Dr. Tan saying, “We bury what we don’t want to know. And sometimes it comes out in odd ways.”

Yes, I’d definitely buried this.

But there was something missing. Something shady around the edges I wasn’t seeing.

“You were with Sloan,” I repeated, still looking for the flaw.

“Yes, but it was nothing, you know? I mean, it was only because of what you did. Or what I thought you did. You’re my lady, you know that. And things had been rough between us.” He leaned toward me, smiling and curling a piece of my hair in his fingers, his leg still vibrating. “I was really out of it. But being with her just made me appreciate you more. Plus it was better because you know how my temper is and if I’d seen you that night—” He shrugged.

I was looking at him, but I felt like I didn’t even recognize him. “You didn’t see me at all that night? After I got off your lap?”

“I mean I saw you when you walked in on me doing my thing. But not other than that.”

What if that was a lie? What if he had lost his temper and tried to run me over? Was that possible? I didn’t even know.

“Look, lady-girl, don’t be mad. That’s what I mean, about you being able to—”

“I think you should leave.”

He slid his sunglasses down his nose to look at me with bloodshot eyes. “Don’t do something you’ll regret.”

“That’s why I want you to go now.”

“Okay. You just get better and when you’re out, everything will go back to being exactly how it was.”

That had been what I wanted more than anything. But now—now I wasn’t so sure.

“Stay soft,” he said, flashing a peace sign.

“That doesn’t mean anything. Why can’t you just say goodbye?”

“Frisky,” he said, nodding. “I like.” He paused in the doorway, one big hand wrapped around the doorjamb. “Oh, and babe. I thought of 140.”

I looked at him standing there. He was so handsome. His shirt rode up and I could see I’d been right about the Captain America boxers. I knew him so well. We were good together. And there were 140 things that he thought I was better than. “What is it?” I asked. I couldn’t not.

“Cherry Slurpee.” He pulled down his glasses to wink. “And that’s a big one.”

 

I managed to keep myself from crying until I heard his footsteps disappear down the hall. I wasn’t crying about Sloan, although I probably should have been. I was crying about what he’d said. Number 140.

Because cherry Slurpees were something David loved. And he thought I did too because I always got one so he could finish mine even though I liked Coke better.

In a way, that said everything there was to say about our relationship.

I was still sniffling a little when the phone rang. At least I thought it did. But maybe I was just hallucinating it. Maybe the altercation with David had been—what did Dr. Tan call it?—a trigger and there was no phone ringing at all.

“Loretta!” I yelled.

“Yes, sweetheart. Why aren’t you answering your phone?”

Aha! She heard it.

I reached for it.

Chapter 24

“Jane Freeman? Is that you?” a voice whispered.

“Yes. Who’s this?”

“It’s Elsa. Hi!” She was still whispering.

“El—”

“Shhh. Don’t say my name. They can’t know I’m calling you.”

“Who?”

“The Know-it-alls. They hear everything you say.”

“What do you mean?”

“I heard them talking on the stairs. They’re listening. They know if you’ve been bad or good so be good for goodness’ sake. Or is it goodness’s sake?”

Elsa had officially lost it. “Thank you for the warning. How are you? I heard about your accident.”

“I’m not supposed to be doing this. I’m under the desk. It’s so cozy here. Like a little mouse in a little mouse house. Isn’t that right, Reginald?”

“Who’s Reginald?”

“The mouse. Who’s Reginald?” she repeated like it was the end point of hilarity, and started laughing so hard she snorted.

“Where are you?”

“At Reginald’s, I told you.”

“Is it nice?”

“If you like spiders. Which I don’t.”

“Oh.”

“Shhh, someone is coming.”

“Why did you call me?”

“I did? Why would I call you? You were so mad at me at the party.”

“I was?”

“I couldn’t help it. I didn’t know what would happen.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, I shouldn’t have taken the picture. But there’s something else.”

“What picture?”

“Shhh, I’m thinking. God, I don’t know what they have me on here, but man, is it messing with my mind. Oh, I remember. At first I didn’t see you there. And then there was nothing I could do. I tried. I tried to help you. To do what you would have wanted. To help you make the pain go away.”

“Where? Where did you see me?”

“I have to go.”

“Did you run over me?”

“Run over you? I wasn’t wearing my running shoes!” I heard her laughing and then the sound of her hanging up.

My hand was shaking as I put the phone down. Had Elsa just confessed?

I picked up Officer Rowley’s card and dialed her number and left a message on her voice mail.

As I waited for her to call back, I tried to make sense out of what Elsa said.

“You were so mad at me at the party.”

I thought back, groping for a memory of her. I hadn’t been mad when I saw her downstairs with David, I’d hardly—